Sorting csv filenames according to date/time

Hello,

I have the following csv files in a directory:

'Screen 5_05-06-2020_03-19-18-PM.log.csv'

'Screen 5_05-06-2020_04-17-22-PM.log.csv'

'Screen 5_05-06-2020_11-03-19-AM.log.csv'

'Screen 5_05-06-2020_11-06-22-AM.log.csv'

'Screen 5_05-06-2020_11-45-15-AM.log.csv'

I am trying to concatenate them but Matlab messes up the order, I've tried using the natsort function but it is not giving me the right result. How can I sort it so that the result is this:

'Screen 5_05-06-2020_11-03-19-AM.log.csv'

'Screen 5_05-06-2020_11-06-22-AM.log.csv'

'Screen 5_05-06-2020_11-45-15-AM.log.csv'

'Screen 5_05-06-2020_03-19-18-PM.log.csv'

'Screen 5_05-06-2020_04-17-22-PM.log.csv'

[Stephen23]

Note that if the filenames used ISO 8601 formats then a basic character sort would return them in chronological order:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601

Note only that, but most OSs would also display them in chronological order. Better names:

'Screen 5_2020-06-05_11-03-19.log.csv'
'Screen 5_2020-06-05_11-06-22.log.csv'
'Screen 5_2020-06-05_11-45-15.log.csv'
'Screen 5_2020-06-05_15-19-18.log.csv'
'Screen 5_2020-06-05_16-17-22.log.csv'

Answer 1

[Cris LaPierre]

The way I can think to do this is to extract the date and time text from the filename, convert it to a datetime, sort the datetime array, and use the index from sort to reorder the files.

files = {'Screen 5_05-06-2020_03-19-18-PM.log.csv'
'Screen 5_05-06-2020_04-17-22-PM.log.csv'
'Screen 5_05-06-2020_11-03-19-AM.log.csv'
'Screen 5_05-06-2020_11-06-22-AM.log.csv'
'Screen 5_05-06-2020_11-45-15-AM.log.csv'};

% extract date and time
date = extractBetween(files,"Screen 5_",".log");
% Convert to datetime array
date = datetime(date,"InputFormat","dd-MM-yyyy_hh-mm-ss-a");
% sort datetimes in ascending order
[~,ind] = sort(date);

% reorder original filenames using sort order
files = files(ind)



files = 5×1 cell array    
'Screen 5_05-06-2020_11-03-1…  
'Screen 5_05-06-2020_11-06-2…  
'Screen 5_05-06-2020_11-45-1…  
'Screen 5_05-06-2020_03-19-1…  
'Screen 5_05-06-2020_04-17-2…  

[Sridutt Gokul]

Thank you, this worked flawlessly for me!